Project 44: Low Sun

Well, after a bout of "writer's block", this seems to have lifted and all is right with the world. I went out for a walk with the dog this evening, and the beautiful sun played ball and shone brightly right up to the point when it disappeared below the horizon. This gave me the opportunity to catch all the different lighting effects required of the brief, and fully appreciate the dazzling effect of the evening sun. In spring & summer, it can take on an ethereal feel, and this if often when I'm on my way home from work without my camera, or putting the boys to bed. It didn't have that ethereal feeling this evening, but it gave me a flavour of what can be achieved with the right subject in that light. 2 observations struck me:

1. The light changes in seconds, so you have to have your camera at the ready, almost fixed to your eye.
2. The lower it gets, the more profound the effects become, but this is also when it changes most rapidly.

I particularly liked the rim lighting effects, and would love to catch those when photographing my children, although they are not the most cooperative subjects at the moment. Tonight, Ruby was a little star, sitting still while I captured the rim light from different angles, showing the red glow in her fur.

The backlighting pictures gave some interesting effects. I have included some which are clearly underexposed, however the shaft of light on parts of the forest floor was an effect I liked. All I need to do is find a strategically growing toadstool later in the year, and this would come together. Front lighting was the least suitable for this subject matter - it caused the woodland to look too contrasty, and Ruby wasn't particularly flattered by it either as she was scrunching up her eyes. This would be more suitable for a boat/ red brick building/ certain flowers, in my opinion anyway!

Project 43: A Sunny Day (Through the Day)

I completed this task as the final one in the "natural light" section of the course, as I found the prospect of it quite tedious. I also risked getting "stuck" on the course, due to waiting for a sunny day when it was convenient to devote the whole day to photographing a scene. The other issue that I have is that my house is surrounded by tall trees, meaning it is very difficult to find a sunny spot after 5 o clock, because we are shrouded by trees. Eventually I decided on photographing my bike up against a wall (bikes are very photogenic, although mine is a bit modern so less so) and managed to get a selection of images across the day. The main differences between them was the colour of the light (already covered) and the high contrast in the middle of the day. The latter was the key learning outcome from the project, although it is something I was already aware of. This high contrast can be difficult for outdoor wedding photography, and is where the marmite world of HDR comes in. I do want to try HDR, but have not yet taken the opportunity - it's on my to do list next.

Incidentally, I set the white balance to "daylight" for all of the pictures to try and highlight the color difference. The pictures were taken on a south facing wall.

Project 42: Judging Colour Temperature

The object of this project was to study the colour of natural light. Prior to this course, the colour of light was not something I ever really considered. In fact, I rarely looked up and don't recall being aware of sunsets unless they were really extreme. Part of my development as a "photographer" includes becoming much more aware & sensitive to the light, and assessing its colour is part of that journey.

I have definately become more aware of the warming colours of evening sun, and some of my photos in the "Low Sun" blogpost demonstrate that. However I have much less awareness of the blue tinge of shade, although I suppose I was aware of the grey cold feel of shade pictures. The 3 photos in this project were taken with the White Balance setting on daylight, and have not been corrected post shutter. In reality, I often tweak the temperature settings in Lightroom depending on the subject.

The first point to notice is that the picture taken in the midday sun is extremely unflattering, and it is most definately white, to the point of looking "overexposed". The picture in the shade, seconds later, is by far a better portrait, although it does have a blue grey cast to it. Although the evening sun version is a bit unflattering because of the extreme side lighting, I like the warm tones from the sun and probably would not change them post shutter.

I always shoot in RAW format for the simple reason that it is easy to correct the exposure (to a small degree) and the white balance afterwards. As suggested in the notes, I applied a warm up filter to the shade picture (in photoshop)and this was a distinct improvement. The same effect could be achieved in lightroom by changing the white balance setting on the raw file to "shade".

I do think my awareness of light colour is developing all the time, and you will see some of my blog shots (and assignment 2 on colour) where I have exploited the blues & pinks around twilight, and the strong casts are often what I set out to achieve.

Assignment 2 - Colour

These are the images for Assignment 2, arranged as follows:

1. 4 images demonstrating similar colours
2. 4 images demonstrating contrasting colours
3. 4 images demonstrating complementary colours
4. 4 images showing colour accent

I wasn't intending to include my assignments within my online learning log, as I keep them printed out, however issues with my printer meant that I have included them here to show the colours as "pure" before being altered by the printer. Printer calibration is an issue for many, but, like most things photography related, requires quite a considerable outlay in expenditure to correct it (that's assuming I could actually figure out colourmunki or whatever). As such software costs considerably more than the printer, it's an issue I'll just have to live with. I also noticed that photos printed from Lightroom were considerably more dull and dark than those printed directly in Windows. However the latter is less easy to use when arranging things on a page.

This is an outstanding issue I need to get my head around, but was a particular problem in Assignment 2 because the colour is key to the assignment.

Project 40: Using a Meter

This project is essentially in 4 parts, designed to demonstrate how to achieve correct exposure by understanding how my camera meter works.

1. Read my camera manual & understand the specific metering modes that my camera has, and how they work;
2. Identify some famous photographs where the subjects are intrinsically very light or very dark;
3. Produce between 4 & 6 photographs which are deliberately lighter or darker than average; and
4. Take 5 bracketed exposures of any subject.

Part 1 My Camera

This is probably the first time I've looked at my manual since starting the course (see early entry in my blog) and it served as a timely reminder that I should refer back to it more often. My camera is a Canon EOS 450D which is described as an entry level DSLR (does that mean the photos it produces are of inferior quality or it lacks functionality that I am unlikely to ever use anyway?). It has 4 methods of metering, and I have only ever used Evaluative metering.

Evaluative metering is described as an all round metering mode suited for portraits & backlit subjects. Although my camera is permanently set to this, I have subconsiously been aware of its limitations and occasionally overide the "correct" exposure settings that are suggested in aperture priority mode (my "default" setting on my camera) by switching to manual mode. This is also referred to as "pattern" in the metadata, and I guess this uses the "Coca Cola" magic ingedient that Canon manufacturers think will give the best exposure readings in the majority of scenes & subjects.

Partial metering is effective when the background is much brighter than the subject, and is weighted more heavily in the centre (or wherever the exposure is "locked"). I occassionally take portraits against the sky , and this would be a useful setting to adopt in that situation.

Spot metering is the most intuitive method, and meters for a specific part of the subject or scene. Apparently this is for advanced users only. Am I an advanced user? I can see certain situations when this might be used (illumination of a subject by a shaft of light for example).

Centre weighted average metering is another method for advanced users only! The metering is weighted at the centre and then averaged for the entire scene. This is the one I have most trouble getting my head around, and I guess the only way to understand it is to use it.

To illustrate, I took some shots using the 4 different methods in a situation where there was high contrast, namely a light at the end of a tunnel. Unfortunately the centre weighted average results looked broadly similar to evaluative, so I find it hard to think where I may require this form of metering.














































































Part 2 Picture Count

I chose to review "Masters of Photography" for such pictures. What was apparent to me was that there were far more intrinsically dark pictures than intrinsically light pictures. This is perhaps illustrative of how dark light is so much more evocative, certainly in black & white. I have also included the front cover of this book as one such high contrast example. This is an image by Berenice Abbott and I find it quite stunning. What caught me even more was that this picture was taken in 1932 - before WWII and before both my parents were born (they are now in their sixties)! When I think of the limited photographic equipment available then (no carbon fibre tripods, high ISO and instant feedback) it makes it all the more amazing. The skyline itself looks so "modern" and so electric.






















Another image that mesmerized me was by Horst P Horst "Evening Gown by Schiaparelli" - the lighting creating a silhouette of the model, coupled with the elegant angle of the model make this a timeless fashion shot. Despite the white gown & background, I think this image is intrinsically dark by virture of the lack of detail in the shadows.

The other pictures shown as "dark" are Birmingham Special at Rural Retreat, Virginia by O. Winston Link (love his train shots) and an image by Willy Ronis of a resting circus performer. The "light" shots include the famous Madonna shot by Herb Ritts and Lady Ann Rhys as Flora by Madame Yevonde. The latter is another example of a shot that could be taken in the 1990s rather than in 1935. There were numerous other shots I would have liked to have included here, but Blogger being as it is (i.e. difficult to manipulate images on the page) I chose to be selective.












































































































Part 3: Produce 4 pictures that are either intrinsically dark or light

I admit to finding this part of the project a bit of a struggle as I am currently suffering from a drought of inspiration. I really enjoyed the Elements of Design part of the course, and the assignment on colour but am now suffering from the photographic equivalent of writers block. In terms of the intrinsically dark images, I firstly thought of black and of producing a black shot, similar to the earlier project on "black, white & grey as colours". Obvious subjects included a black cat, dog, camera equipment etc. However I found that the histogram for the Raindrops Reflections demonstrated how the tones were mostly in the shadows, making this my "darkest" shot. Similarly, the seascape was dark by virtue of being taken at dusk. So neither of my "dark" shots were black. I found the light shots really difficult to think of subjects other than flowers. I have included one from the archives which I liked at the time because of its lightness & delicateness. I think the clock face is also light overall, as the black numbers & hand make up a proportionately small part of the image.

Clearly a lot of my "snow" shots from the start of the year are intrinsically light.









Part 4: Bracketed Exposures

I always shoot in RAW which gives some leeway in "correcting" exposure post shutter, up to a point. Correcting underexposure does produce more noise in the image, whereas overexposure can be rescued more easily provided the highlights aren't blown completely. Mastering exposure pre shutter is something I would like to attain, as it would reduce post shutter work as well as leading to better images overall. I have bought the book "Perfect Exposure" by Michael Freeman, and plan to read this over the next few months. I also need to make more use of the different metering methods within my camera. My particular area of weakness is correctly exposing when flash has been used. As with everything, practice makes perfect, but this has been a useful exercise as some of the better images were those which had been underexposed compared to the meter reading. I haven't included all bracketed exposures here, but have included the "best" image from the set of bracketed exposures. I also included an example of an image corrected in Lightroom; bracketed exposures of insects aren't really practical. Interestingly, nearly all of my examples came out better when exposure was reduced. I am not sure whether this is a reflection of the particular subjects that I chose for this exercise. I don't need to correct the exposure on the majority of my shots (correction is the exception rather than the rule) so I was surprised at this particular result.